An Umbrella in a Hurricane': Why 2.8% Won't Fix Family Medicine

Dear colleagues,

The Government of Ontario recently announced a 2.8% global increase for Year 3 of the current 2021-2024 Physician Services Agreement (PSA). Moving forward, the OMA will proceed with mediation in March & April for the first year of the 2024-2028 PSA.  If an agreement cannot be reached, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and the Government of Ontario have reached a procedural agreement to early arbitration for the first year of the next PSA (2024-2028). With arbitration scheduled for May instead of December 2024, this will allow you to receive your Year 1 compensation earlier than anticipated (likely Fall 2024). Arbitration for years two, three and four will take place in late 2024/early 2025.

There’s no doubt that 2.8% is an improvement from the previously announced 0% for Year 3. We recognize the efforts of Kim Moran and her team at the OMA, and thank them for helping secure this modest adjustment.

With 80% of healthcare happening in community and outside of the hospital, family doctors should be at the centre of health care teams and not passed over as this crisis continues to worsen. And yet, they stand to receive only 20% of the proposed new funding (given their lower relative incomes).

The additional funding will be distributed to physicians according to their billing from the previous fiscal year, which ultimately means that hospitals and specialists will receive a proportionately larger allocation of the funding than family doctors. When you break it all down after taxes and overhead, this money will give the average family physician may receive an extra $12 a day – maybe enough for a coffee and a bagel. It’s not going to change the minds of anyone thinking of leaving their untenable family practices, and it’s certainly not going to entice medical students to choose family medicine as their specialty – a dismal statistic we’ll see in real time in a couple of weeks when CaRMS releases this year’s residency matching data. Most importantly, it will not help the climbing number of Ontarians without a family doctor in getting access to the care they need.

We put out a media release on Friday (read here) responding to this announcement, emphasizing the importance of family doctors as a priority for any funding increase, otherwise it’s as futile as providing us an umbrella in a hurricane. We will follow up next week with any media clips that result from the release.  

The SGFP will continue to pressure the government (and our own OMA) for real funding changes that will appropriately fund family medicine and help alleviate the systemic pressures we live and breathe every day.

Please connect with me if you have questions about this announcement, or feedback regarding
our advocacy approach to this crisis.

Regards,
Dr. Aly Abdulla, SGFP
On behalf of Dr. Dave Barber, Chair, SGFP